By Nancy Tartaglione
International Box Office Editor/Senior Contributor
First at April’s CinemaCon, and then June’s CineEurope, exhibition got a glimpse of Damien Chazelle’s upcoming Hollywood-set period extravaganza Babylon. On Monday, Paramount showed off the trailer at TIFF, and today dropped it for the rest of the world – check it out above.
The La La Land Oscar-winner’s latest is led by Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Diego Calva and is billed as an original epic set in 1920s Los Angeles, as the industry makes the transition from silent films to talkies. A tale of outsized ambition and outrageous excess, it traces the rise and fall of multiple characters during an era of unbridled decadence and depravity in early Hollywood.
As Anthony reported from TIFF on Monday, the trailer is non-stop party and rollicking jazz. Robbie plays an ambitious up-and-comer who wants “everyone to party forever.” Pitt is wild mega-star Jack Conrad who proclaims, “You know what we have to do? We have to redefine the form, map those dreams and print them into history. Look up and say: Eureka! I am not alone” — this just prior to falling ass-backwards off of a balcony.
Chazelle told the TIFF audience yesterday, “After the quietness of First Man, I wanted to do something boisterous and loud… We want to do away with pre-conceptions of the era.”
Chazelle directs from his own script. Cast also includes Jovan Adepo, Li Jun Li, Jean Smart, P.J. Byrne, Lukas Haas, Olivia Hamilton, Tobey Maguire, Max Minghella, Rory Scovel, Katherine Waterston, Flea, Jeff Garlin, Eric Roberts, Ethan Suplee, Samara Weaving and Olivia Wilde.
Babylon is a Marc Platt/Wild Chickens/Organism Pictures Production. Platt, Matthew Plouffe and Olivia Hamilton are producers, with Michael Beugg, Maguire, Wyck Godfrey, Helen Estabrook and Adam Siegel serving as exec producers.
Paramount opens Babylon domestically on Christmas Day with a further expansion on January 6 and international rollout to follow.
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